WAR FOR OIL: “Take the oil” isn’t just an applause line — it’s a policy that has been discussed in Washington for decades.

The earliest discussions of a U.S. move to seize Arab oil arouse in the early 1970s, when Saudi Arabia and the other Middle Eastern oil producers nationalized fields once owned by major American oil companies and established OPEC to assert greater control over the pricing of their exports. That came to a head in late 1973 and early 1974, when Arab countries imposed an embargo on deliveries to the United States (in retaliation for American arms shipments to Israel during the Yom Kippur War) and OPEC announced a fourfold increase in oil prices — the two combining to cause a severe U.S. energy shortage and subsequent recession. In response to these perceived assaults, assorted American pundits and politicians called for military moves of one sort or another to address the problem.

These days it’s easier just to out-produce them.